The shutdown of the economy since Coronavirus popped up in March this year has been felt by no industry more than it has the music industry. Live shows and tours cancelled, music videos socially distanced, festivals streamed online.
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Not all of it has been bad - while most of it fell, there was a quick adaptation that saw a global boom in community radio that was shown in the UK in platforms like There’s No Signal.
However, the government has been keen for the music industry to recover. It made a contribution of 5.2 billion to the economy in 2018 and was en route for further growth - up until coronavirus cut those dreams short. The 1.1 billion that live music provides unsurprisingly fell by more than 90%. Thousands of job losses, hundreds of local venues facing closure, and reports that it could take 3-4 years for the live music sector to reach 2019 levels.
Despite that report, Boris Johnson has made a U-Turn on last month's announcement ruling out live shows, instead going on to announce that following a $1.57 billion economic package, that they could see venues reopen as soon as August, with social distancing.
The social distancing measures will include limited ticket sales so that audiences can be apart, an emphasis on online ticket purchasing as well as deep cleaning and separate queues.
We’ll see if this takes off since we are three weeks into July already - but does this mean live shows could finally come back sooner, rather than later?
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